In all cases of suicide streamed in FB it's a human with a psychological and/or psychiatric problem.
Yes. I acknowledged this. I also pointed out that in at least some of the cases, it's attention-seeking behavior that would not happen if there was not a way to get an audience through a giant social network.
You are contradicting yourself.
I'm not contradicting myself at all; you're not reading what I'm actually saying.
Instead of blaming FB why don't we look at how well mental care is faring?
Because for various societal reasons which are beyond the scope of this discussion, we've made it very easy for someone with severe psychological problems to not get treatment, so how much good would that actually do?
When I saw this, what came to my mind is the idea currently going around that all white people in America today share the blame for slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other historical evils perpetrated against black people and other minorities.
That's yet another thing that I don't want being taught in schools, especially given that some of my ancestors were persecuted and suffered horribly at the hands of contemporary racists for fighting against these evils back when they were in fashion!
Your example is true, but not for the reasons most people generally think. The Galileo story that "everybody knows" is more myth than reality. If you're interested in the history of heliocentrism, and how politics and religion really contributed, I'd strongly suggest reading The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown. (Silly name notwithstanding, it's a very thorough and worthwhile historical treatment of the events involved. And you can read the whole thing for free at that link.)
The implication that anyone who holds specific religious beliefs is a dogmatic person incapable of critical thinking is absolutely bigotry. As is the further implication that being such a person is the only reason one would support this idea.
No, generally speaking cars are not a direct cause of the deaths. Virtually every car on the road today is ridiculously safe; we're not living in the age of the Pinto anymore. In almost every case, the direct cause of the death was a human being doing something stupid, either driving recklessly, driving while intoxicated, or (in some rare cases) someone who was not driving who carelessly stepped out into the path of a moving vehicle that was close enough that the driver didn't have time to react.
Are you saying that any service that is too big to [strawman strawman strawman]?
No, I'm not recommending any specific policies. I'm saying that this is a principle that is worthy of serious consideration in light of past and current experience.
1) I didn't say "members", I said "active users." The two figures are almost certainly very different from one another, probably by at least two orders of magnitude in this case.
2) How long have they been around?
If you're going to try to refute what I said, please try to refute what I actually said instead of some strawman that sounds vaguely similar to it.
Re: Re: Well, they're firm on silencing political opponents.
Are you implying that anti-trust would have the effect of reducing the size of the audience of any individual user,
That should be obvious, yes.
and also that this would be a good thing rather than an unfortunate side effect?
In most cases, yes. In the case of suicides, definitely. (Especially in the cases where not having an audience causes the person to not end up killing themselves in the first place!)
Restrictions on speech -- even that of government employees -- demands a narrow crafting. Targeting speech with legislation requires a sniper's mentality. Finchem is carrying a shotgun loaded with birdshot and hoping it's enough to prevent speech he doesn't like from being spoken in the state's classrooms.
I dunno. I find point 4, which is the keystone of the whole thing, eminently reasonable:
Parents and taxpayers have a right to expect that taxpayer resources will be spent on education, not political or ideological indoctrination.
Do you feel it's appropriate to have your tax dollars spent on political or ideological indoctrination of children?
Have you ever stopped to think that the the good side of the big social media sites is that they enabling a strong unifying across humanity, and have started the bumpy ride to a truly peaceful world.
I've thought about it. Then I've looked at the real world and seen that this is simply not the case. Every forum beyond a certain number of regular users (I'm not sure, but I suspect this number is somewhere around 150; look up the concept of the "monkeysphere" if you want to know why) seems to inevitably degenerate into a wretched hive of scum and trollery within a decade, despite the best intentions of any number of stakeholders to try to prevent it from happening.
People are streaming suicides on Facebook because of its immense reach. If Facebook wasn't so enormous, capable of broadcasting to so many people, they almost certainly wouldn't do it. (Afterall, you never heard of people broadcasting suicides on the Internet before Facebook, now did you?) It's being done by people who want to do something shocking to get attention. (The fact that it's a suicide doesn't contradict this point, however irrational it may seem, as it's generally agreed upon that people don't take their own lives while in their right minds.)
The very existence of this article proves that this tactic is working. They're getting lots of attention over it!
In light of this, consider the start of the article:
We've talked a lot in the past about the impossibility of doing content moderation well at scale, but it's sometimes difficult for people to fathom just what we mean by "impossible," with them often assuming -- incorrectly -- that we're just saying it's difficult to do well. But it goes way beyond that. The point is that no matter what choices are made, it will lead to some seriously negative outcomes. And that includes doing no moderation at all. In short there are serious trade-offs to every single choice.
When the cause of the problem is Facebook's enormous scale, and the reason it's impossible for them to deal with the problem effectively is that very same scale, then the conclusion is obvious.
At this point we've seen enough serious scale-related problems that it's worth taking a serious look at the notion that "too big to succeed is too big to exist."
Techdirt only has a partial Markdown implementation. This is likely deliberate, to keep people from doing things like posting images in comments, but it seems to have been done a bit sloppily and they're missing a bunch of important formatting stuff, like the part that turns single returns into BR tags.
People who like to invoke 1984, take note of this. Who is it here who is attempting to do away with "crimethink" by making it impossible to even have any knowledge of forbidden ideas in the first place, in order to make it impossible to reason about them?
The DMCA was designed to eliminate the need for endless litigation over infringement
Yes, it was. And that turned out to be a mistake, like so many other aspects of the DMCA.
We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
Somehow, we went from a world in which copyright infringement was something that could only be determined by a court reviewing all of the facts (also known as due process) to one in which all that matters are mere accusations.
"Somehow"?
We know exactly how it happened: the DMCA got passed, with its guilty-on-accusation-alone takedown system, and then it stuck around long enough to become a precedent.
The silver lining to this is that this also means we know how to fix it: repeal the DMCA and do away with extralegal takedowns and contributory liability. Place copyright liability under the aegis of CDA 230 alongside everything else; it was a stupid exception to carve out in the first place. Return to a system where infringement can only be determined by a court reviewing all of the facts (also known as due process).
Yes, they didn't create the problem, but they absolutely did make the problem worse, and for that they deserve to be blamed, completely independent of whatever anyone else may have done.
On the post: The Internet Giant's Dilemma: Preventing Suicide Is Good; Invading People's Private Lives... Not So Much
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes. I acknowledged this. I also pointed out that in at least some of the cases, it's attention-seeking behavior that would not happen if there was not a way to get an audience through a giant social network.
I'm not contradicting myself at all; you're not reading what I'm actually saying.
Because for various societal reasons which are beyond the scope of this discussion, we've made it very easy for someone with severe psychological problems to not get treatment, so how much good would that actually do?
On the post: Another State Lawmaker Thinks Teachers Should Be Banned From Discussing 'Controversial' Issues
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
When I saw this, what came to my mind is the idea currently going around that all white people in America today share the blame for slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other historical evils perpetrated against black people and other minorities.
That's yet another thing that I don't want being taught in schools, especially given that some of my ancestors were persecuted and suffered horribly at the hands of contemporary racists for fighting against these evils back when they were in fashion!
On the post: Another State Lawmaker Thinks Teachers Should Be Banned From Discussing 'Controversial' Issues
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
How did you miss the clear-as-day reference to Noah's Ark?
On the post: Another State Lawmaker Thinks Teachers Should Be Banned From Discussing 'Controversial' Issues
Re: Re:
Your example is true, but not for the reasons most people generally think. The Galileo story that "everybody knows" is more myth than reality. If you're interested in the history of heliocentrism, and how politics and religion really contributed, I'd strongly suggest reading The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown. (Silly name notwithstanding, it's a very thorough and worthwhile historical treatment of the events involved. And you can read the whole thing for free at that link.)
On the post: Another State Lawmaker Thinks Teachers Should Be Banned From Discussing 'Controversial' Issues
Re: Re:
2. Does it really matter?
3. See point 1
On the post: Another State Lawmaker Thinks Teachers Should Be Banned From Discussing 'Controversial' Issues
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The implication that anyone who holds specific religious beliefs is a dogmatic person incapable of critical thinking is absolutely bigotry. As is the further implication that being such a person is the only reason one would support this idea.
On the post: The Internet Giant's Dilemma: Preventing Suicide Is Good; Invading People's Private Lives... Not So Much
Re: Re:
No, generally speaking cars are not a direct cause of the deaths. Virtually every car on the road today is ridiculously safe; we're not living in the age of the Pinto anymore. In almost every case, the direct cause of the death was a human being doing something stupid, either driving recklessly, driving while intoxicated, or (in some rare cases) someone who was not driving who carelessly stepped out into the path of a moving vehicle that was close enough that the driver didn't have time to react.
No, I'm not recommending any specific policies. I'm saying that this is a principle that is worthy of serious consideration in light of past and current experience.
On the post: Another State Lawmaker Thinks Teachers Should Be Banned From Discussing 'Controversial' Issues
Re: Re:
On the post: The Internet Giant's Dilemma: Preventing Suicide Is Good; Invading People's Private Lives... Not So Much
Re: Re: Re: Re:
1) I didn't say "members", I said "active users." The two figures are almost certainly very different from one another, probably by at least two orders of magnitude in this case. 2) How long have they been around?
If you're going to try to refute what I said, please try to refute what I actually said instead of some strawman that sounds vaguely similar to it.
On the post: The Internet Giant's Dilemma: Preventing Suicide Is Good; Invading People's Private Lives... Not So Much
Re: Re: Well, they're firm on silencing political opponents.
That should be obvious, yes.
In most cases, yes. In the case of suicides, definitely. (Especially in the cases where not having an audience causes the person to not end up killing themselves in the first place!)
On the post: Another State Lawmaker Thinks Teachers Should Be Banned From Discussing 'Controversial' Issues
I dunno. I find point 4, which is the keystone of the whole thing, eminently reasonable:
Do you feel it's appropriate to have your tax dollars spent on political or ideological indoctrination of children?
On the post: The Internet Giant's Dilemma: Preventing Suicide Is Good; Invading People's Private Lives... Not So Much
Re: Re:
I've thought about it. Then I've looked at the real world and seen that this is simply not the case. Every forum beyond a certain number of regular users (I'm not sure, but I suspect this number is somewhere around 150; look up the concept of the "monkeysphere" if you want to know why) seems to inevitably degenerate into a wretched hive of scum and trollery within a decade, despite the best intentions of any number of stakeholders to try to prevent it from happening.
On the post: The Internet Giant's Dilemma: Preventing Suicide Is Good; Invading People's Private Lives... Not So Much
Two thoughts come to mind amid all this:
In light of this, consider the start of the article:
When the cause of the problem is Facebook's enormous scale, and the reason it's impossible for them to deal with the problem effectively is that very same scale, then the conclusion is obvious.
At this point we've seen enough serious scale-related problems that it's worth taking a serious look at the notion that "too big to succeed is too big to exist."
On the post: Ajit Pai Gloats As House Fails To Restore Net Neutrality
Re: Re:
On the post: Antipiracy Outfits Routinely Claim Copyright Infringement Against Sites That Simply Report When Torrents Are Released
People who like to invoke 1984, take note of this. Who is it here who is attempting to do away with "crimethink" by making it impossible to even have any knowledge of forbidden ideas in the first place, in order to make it impossible to reason about them?
On the post: Announcing The Public Domain Game Jam: Gaming Like It's 1923
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: It Is Both Ridiculous And Dangerous To Make Domain Registrars Liable For Content On Domains
Re: Re: Re: Gee, kids: everything is going the way I've predicte
Accused pirates still have the right to Due Process. Ignoring this is really not helping your attempts to claim the moral high ground.
On the post: Millions Upon Millions Of 'Takedown' Notices To Google... For Links That Aren't Even In Google
Re: Re:
Yes, it was. And that turned out to be a mistake, like so many other aspects of the DMCA.
On the post: It Is Both Ridiculous And Dangerous To Make Domain Registrars Liable For Content On Domains
"Somehow"?
We know exactly how it happened: the DMCA got passed, with its guilty-on-accusation-alone takedown system, and then it stuck around long enough to become a precedent.
The silver lining to this is that this also means we know how to fix it: repeal the DMCA and do away with extralegal takedowns and contributory liability. Place copyright liability under the aegis of CDA 230 alongside everything else; it was a stupid exception to carve out in the first place. Return to a system where infringement can only be determined by a court reviewing all of the facts (also known as due process).
On the post: Rep. Louie Gohmert Wants To Strip Section 230 Immunity From Social Media Platforms That Aren't 'Neutral'
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, they didn't create the problem, but they absolutely did make the problem worse, and for that they deserve to be blamed, completely independent of whatever anyone else may have done.
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